IQASL is a project sponosored by the Swiss Federal Office for the environment to quantify shoreline trash along swiss lakes and rivers in the Rhone, Aare, Ticino and Linth/Limmat catchment areas. This is accomplished by conducting multiple small scale and discrete litter surveys throughout the river bassin. The majority of samples are taken from lakes.
What is a litter survey?
A litter survey is the identification and count of all objects found within a delimited area, in this study all surveys were bordered on one side by water. Each object is placed into one of 260 categories¹. The location, date, survey dimensions and the total number of objects in each category is noted.
Purpose of the surveys
The survey results help ALL stakeholders identify the items that make up the mass of trash found in the natural environment on the shores of Swiss lakes and rivers. The surveys answer the following questions:
These are the most frequently asked questions and should be considered when determining any mitigation or reduction strategies.
The project is based on the following assumptions:
Purpose of this report
Summarize the results for the survey area and define the magnitude of those results with respect to other survey areas.
The survey results are presented as follows:
Contents of this report
Scope: description of river basin
Survey dimensions, locations, aggregated totals
Trash removed: most abundant objects
More information
For more information about the project visit project home.
If you would like more information specific information about this survey area please contact:
¹ The EU guide on monitoring marine litter
² There is most likely more trash at the survey site, but certainly not less than what was recorded.
³ Independent observations : stats stackexchange
The Aare source is the Aare Glaciers in the Bernese Alps of south-central Switzerland. The Aare is the longest river entirely within Switzerland with a length of 295 km and drainage area of 17,779 km2. Following the Aare Gorge, the river expands into the glacial Lake Brienz. The Aare is canalized at Interlaken before entering Lake Thun and exiting through the city of Thun.⁵ The river then flows northwest surrounding the old city center of Bern on three sides. Continuing west to Lake Wohlen Reservoir it turns north to Aarberg and is diverted west into Lake Biel by the Hagneck Canal, one of a series of major water corrections made in the 19th and 20th centuries connecting Neuchatel, Biel and Morat lakes through canalization. From the upper end of Lake Biel, at Nidau, the river exits through the Nidau-Büren Canal/Aare Canal.⁶
The Limmat and Reuss rivers⁷, two major tributaries converge into the Aare at the Limmatspitz between the cities of Brugg and Untersiggenthal in Canton Aargau.⁸ The Aare river ends in the north-western region of Koblenz, Switzerland where it joins the Rhine river which eventually terminates in the North Sea.
⁵ The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1998, July 20). Aare River. Retrieved from Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/place/Aare-River
⁶ Standard Encyclopedia of Worlds Rivers and Lakes. (1965) R.K. Gresswell
⁷ The Limmat and Reuss are part of different survey areas
⁸ Pro Natura . (n.d.). Limmatspitz. Retrieved from Pro Natura : https://www.pronatura-ag.ch/de/Gebenstorf-limmatspitz
Some objects are found throughout the survey area and some of those objects are found in all survey areas. Knowing which objects are most abundant and what those values are helps idenitify sources or zones of accumulation.
Some objects are found often and in elevated quantities, others are found often and in small quantities and some times objects are found less often but in large quantities. Knowing the diffference can help find the sources.
Utility: The utility type is based on the utilisation of the object prior to it being discarded. Objects are placed into to one of the 260 categories. Those categories are grouped according to utilisation.
For example, a piece of plastic would be placed into the category 'Fragmented plastics', depending on its size. However, a piece of plastic that was once a bucket and we know this because we are familiar with either the brand or the product, is placed in a code for buckets⁸.
⁸ See the annex for the complete list of objects identified, includes category and group classification
Contact hammerdirt.ch for any questions about the content of this report. If you would like a report for your municipality contact the Swiss federal office for the environment: Municipal waste section.
The median pieces per meter per survey of the most abundant objects by municipality
Survey locations: